Sensor cleaning with Ian @ the perc ponds

[Steve Cavigliano]

Hello All,
As you might have read in Ian's post, we met up yesterday afternoon at the perculation ponds near us. We were there around 5 and the Sun was in and out of the clouds :dunno

Anyhow, I had some dust bunnies on my sensor and I was going to try the magic tape method to remove them. Ian generously offered to meet me and let me use his sensor brush. Whlie we were there we figured we might as well shoot some. When we had talked about meeting at the perc ponds, I mentioned that I had seen a nice big opsrey in that area a few days ago. I figured maybe we'd be lucky enough to see him on our walk.

Well, we started out around the first pond and saw a couple of Canadian Geese and their brood.

http://freezeframephotography.smugmug.com/photos/23371022-L.jpg

Then we saw a group of terns and figured we'd try to get a few shots of these, difficult to expose properly, birds. Close, but no cigar. More importantly, no eye :rolleyes
http://freezeframephotography.smugmug.com/photos/23372251-L.jpg

I happened to look into a tree that people were fishing next to and saw a small Green Heron sitting on the branches.
http://freezeframephotography.smugmug.com/photos/23371029-M.jpg

Finally, Mr Osprey showed up. He was too far off at first and he left and returned when we got closer to our vehicles. Then he posed for us :D

http://freezeframephotography.smugmug.com/photos/23371019-L.jpg

http://freezeframephotography.smugmug.com/photos/23371034-L.jpg

He was a real showoff....lol When he had flown away again, we packed up our gear and made ready to leave. This wiseguy returned again and started circling and laughing at us from about 20 feet up :huh About 1/2 the closest distance we shot him at when we had out cameras out :rolleyes

Anyhow, I had fun. It's always kewl to shoot with someone else and even kewler if it's another Dgrinner :D Thanks to Ian I had a clean sensor to shoot these BIFs with :clap

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy,
Steve

[bfjr]

Nice Day Nice Shots, no Excellent shots :thumb
Great series thanks :D

[jwear]

osprey is fantanstic :thumb the wrens are hard to get it took me a few times to get the feel for them and with my 50 some odd shots one has the hint of an eye :D nice set Steve :clap :thumb did you use the tape or brush ??

[Eric&Susan]

Nice series. I like the pose in that last one.

Eric

[Harryb]

Good pics Steve and not one lousy night heron among them. :clap

Those terns are hard to shoot. I've taken hundreds of shots of them and I think I can see the eye in maybe two of them, :rolleyes

Cool osprey shots. :thumb

[Khaos]

Nice gosslings pic.:thumb

[Andy]

it's about time you cleaned that sensor :poke

[GREAPER]

That last osprey is very nice Steve.

It's always fun to meet up with a friend for a shoot.

[Seamus]

Looks like you had a good day steve, :thumb .

Shay.

[ian408]

Well, did the bunnies go away :dunno

Your osprey looks very nice as does the heron. Just a bunch of butt
shots of the heron for me.

Ian

[Steve Cavigliano]

Nice Day Nice Shots, no Excellent shots :thumb
Great series thanks :D
Thanks Ben :D :D

I only expected to have a clean sensor, the bird pics were an added bonus....lol


Steve

[Steve Cavigliano]

osprey is fantanstic :thumb the wrens are hard to get it took me a few times to get the feel for them and with my 50 some odd shots one has the hint of an eye :D nice set Steve :clap :thumb did you use the tape or brush ??
Thanks Jeff :D

Yep, those terns were tough. I took about 40 shots and that one was the best :dunno Where I was standing made it tough to get the light right. So no tern eyeball :rolleyes That's the toughest part of catching those guys. Not to mention how quickly they fly and dart about. I saw your tern shots and you did well :clap

I wound up using the brush. Or, more accurately, Ian wound up using the brush on my sensor. He was demonstrating and it looks like the demo got all the dust bunnies :D


Thanks for looking,
Steve

[Steve Cavigliano]

Nice series. I like the pose in that last one.

Eric
Thanks Eric :D

Yeah, this guy was a ham. As I mentioned, once he saw us put those big guns away (the Bigma and Ian's 300mm), he swooped down low :rolleyes We could have stayed for another hour fooling around with him. But, we were already late for dinner....lol

Thanks for taking the time to comment,
Steve

[Steve Cavigliano]

Good pics Steve and not one lousy night heron among them. :clap

Those terns are hard to shoot. I've taken hundreds of shots of them and I think I can see the eye in maybe two of them, :rolleyes

Cool osprey shots. :thumb
Thanks Harry :D

I agree wholeheartedly about those darn terns :rolleyes They are so kewl to watch and hard to shoot because of their speed and erratic flight. Add in that black head and black eyes, with those white wings and you've got a tough exposure too :uhoh These are my best to date though. I'll have to keep on working at it :):


LOL @ the Night Heron comment. Nope, no Night Herons there. They must still be hanging around the rookery. I was surprised to see the little Greenie. There have been few or no egrets or herons at the perc ponds for months now.

Thanks for looking,
Steve

[Steve Cavigliano]

Nice gosslings pic.:thumb
Thanks Khaos :D

We had a tough vantage point on those lil guys. We were up the bank and if we moved closer, they would have fled :dunno We did get some nice pics though.

Here's one with them playing follow the leader.....lol
http://freezeframephotography.smugmug.com/photos/23371026-M.jpg

Thanks for looking,
Steve

[Steve Cavigliano]

it's about time you cleaned that sensor :poke
LOL Yeah, I guess so. Every 11,000 shots whether it needs it or not :lol I appreciate what you tried to do up at Yosemite :thumb It just reinforced the point about taking before and after shots :rolleyes It looks OK right now, though. So I'll keep my fingers crossed and the Bigma mounted....lol

See ya in a few weeks,
Steve

[Steve Cavigliano]

That last osprey is very nice Steve.

It's always fun to meet up with a friend for a shoot.
Thanks Greaper :D

Yep, it's always nice to shoot with Ian. He's really easy going, fun to talk to and he doesn't need feeding as often as Andy :lol

Thanks for looking,
Steve

[Steve Cavigliano]

Looks like you had a good day steve, :thumb .

Shay.
Thanks Shay :D

Yep, shooting is like fishing. Even the worst day is better than working (or in this case, BBQ'in for the family......lol). Suprisingly, even though we didn't get any rain, 5PM onwards gave us the best light of the entire day. So we were pretty happy about that :D

Thanks for taking the time to respond,
Steve

[Steve Cavigliano]

Well, did the bunnies go away :dunno

Your osprey looks very nice as does the heron. Just a bunch of butt
shots of the heron for me.

Ian
Ian,
Thank you so much. I looked through all of the pics from that day and didn't see anything. Of course, I was only shooting @ F8, but even the F22 "after" shots looked good :thumb I think everything is clean now :D

Thanks re; the osprey and greenie. I must have taken 50 shots of the osprey and only 4 or 5 are decent :dunno I tried to get him with the right lighting, but I missed more than I got.....lol Not only that, but he was just too far away in most of them. Plus, 5fps is too slow :lol I need a machine gun like you've got :rolleyes Those extra 3fps would have cured all my problems.....NOT After that 1st Green Heron shot, all the rest of mine were butt shots too :lol3

Anyhow, a pleasure to shoot with you and thanks for helping me get my sensor clean :clap See, and I didn't even post any pics of you either....lol



Steve

[Seamus]

I didn't even post any pics of you either....lol

Steve
spoilsport, the pics of the participants were my favourites from yosemite. Sportsshooter has a great gallery of fun pix, candids of people chimping / sleeping / eating. Share them please:wink

Seamus.

[jeff lapoint]

steve,

these are the types of shots i'm aiming for! very well done. there is a dust spot though on the last pic on the upper left. thought you'd like to know

jk

really, these are all great. when are you nocal guys going to made it down here and show us a few things?

-j

[Steve Cavigliano]

steve,

these are the types of shots i'm aiming for! very well done. there is a dust spot though on the last pic on the upper left. thought you'd like to know

jk

really, these are all great. when are you nocal guys going to made it down here and show us a few things?

-j

Thanks Jeff :D

You had me looking for that dust spot :rofl

As for us coming down South, I'm not sure when we can make it. If you can make it up North a little way (like 3-4 hours), there will be a shoot at Pinnacles SP, 2 weeks from this Friday :D Check this (http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=11330) thread out, for more info.

Thanks for your comments,
Steve